Lemurian Folk Songs - Logos

Lemurian Folk Songs are a very talented band from Budapest, Hungary. Their special brand of sound will put you in the middle of the desert with an ample supply of mystical water and other crisps and delicacies to keep you alive.

A necessary heaviness is to be expected from their universe, it makes for a very rich and textured sound, with hypnotic vocals, otherworldly guitar licks and jams, a bass that transports to anywhere but here, drums that carry the lot.

If you have the opportunity to see them live or to buy their music, just do it. It's one of those times when a talented young band only needs you to keep up making excellent music.

Having said that, I'm going for the album...

And a t-shirt.

I like t-shirts.

See you again sometimes.

The Black Wizards - What The Fuzz!

I've just now finished listening to The Black Wizards' whole discography and I must say I'm impressed.

Not a single track let me down, it rose up, up, and never fell flat. Their debut EP sets the tone and their three albums continue on with astounding stability, musical mastery and a fuzzy atmosphere that takes you from the bottomless pits of the underworld all the way to the snowy peaks where eagles dare.

Their latest album is priced at 1€, but all the others are NYP, so my good advice is listen, listen again, buy all of it in high-quality format, then take it with you and listen again, but louder. Go see them live, drink what you like to drink and enjoy.

See you on this side and the other.

Turtle Skull - Turtle Skull

It's never a bad idea to repair a damaged soul.

I need a Turtle Skull shirt and a vacation...

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland

Now, it's high time I shared this album.

When I first looked at it, I thought "man, what weird covers these young bands sometimes indulge in..." and it took me weeks to know that KG&TLW had already about 13 albums released, five of which in 2017 only !

Of all of those, Polygondwanaland stands out with its underlying concept. As the band has it, the album is not theirs, it's ours, it belongs to us, us the people, and they encourage anyone to do anything at all with it, even start their own label and sell this album with another cover or something, copy it, share it, you name it...

This is free music at its best: great sounds and innovative concepts. The music in itself ranges from psychedelic to progressive rock, with a je ne sais quoi that is quite hard to pin down...

It is worth noting that all the proceeds from the selling of the album will randomly go to the band themselves, "non-profit that deals with lizards" or "non-profits that deal with wizards".

Excellent ! 

Soul Thief - Cosmic Woman

Picture yourself in the middle of the desert.
The heat is hot.
But not too hot.
Somewhere, there's water.
A shining, sparkling river.
And somewhere in your mind, you know where it is.

You there yet?

All right, have a nice listening.

The Citradels - Are They Still Here ?

Before you go on and listen to this album, remember that you never should overlook one because you do not like the first track.

Colour Cue, this album's first track begins in a good mood, with a foggy atmosphere, saturated guitars... Then comes the vocals, which it seems wants to get rid of us, to make us go as far away as possible with a monotonous tone and wrong notes that would trigger a crushing depression in the most joyful hobbits.

At this stage, you're thinking of passing this one out, and I almost did the same. But just skip this track and now the album really begins, rising up with ethereal chords, an old-school psychedelic musical style, a bit of smoke, a bit of dust, a half-destroyed drumkit and guitars riddled with fingerprints.

Just what we asked.

'Are They Still Here ?' feels like it is asking the question. Whether you'll still be here after a bad first impression. Well, you'd do well to be.

Good listening to you all ! Listen, like, share, buy if you're the buying type.

See you.

VA - Orange "Psychedelic" (Colors Compilations)

The Blog That Celebrates Itself (no, it's not me), a brazilian netlabel, has created a selection of musical works and conveyed the particular atmosphere they all exhale with colours.

Under the colour 'Orange' you will find fifteen tracks of psychedelic/desert/hard rock, some in english, some in a still unidentified language that is probably portuguese. Groovy, full of references to psych-acid-culture, really enjoyable. I suddenly have a newfound love for the colour orange.

Perfect for those evenings you spend with friends, remaking the world between two puffs of smoke and thinking about that which the future holds.

Electric Octopus - This is Our Culture

When I see a saturated picture of a purple octopus I feel compelled to hear what it has to say. And so when I saw this album's cover and the name Electric Octopus for the first time, I had a hunch and before listening, went and searched for a Bandcamp site, 'Maybe they even do free music', I thought.

And, coincidence or not, they do, and it's really good !

In a blurry and smokey atmosphere, the record begins by setting up the tempo, feeling the guitar, tuning the bass, progressively dimming the lights and diffusing the atmosphere of a friendly friday night jam session between friends.

These three guys from Belfast have a beautiful musical chemistry, translating itself in three bluesy, jazzy and rocky pieces for about three times twenty minutes, attuning themselves with one another in a perfect fashion.

And believe it or not, the next day, I met a guy from Belfast, here in Belgium.

See you after that.

The Dirty Feathers - Midnight Snakes

Here's an old one, an ancient gem from a time when life was something else.

I discovered The Dirty Feathers and bought their album at a time when it was free-priced. Later I started the Mojoteque project and wanted to share Midnight Snakes, but it was not free anymore. Brought down by the bad fortunes of life, I wistfully decided not to write anything about it... But I chanced upon it recently and there it is again free-priced !

So don't mind me but I will take this opportunity to share it with you.

In the year 2011, a band from Illinois decided to mix psychedelic, desertic and mineral influences to create a unique stylish blend which musn't be listened to on "shitty laptop speakers" as they say.

I will even go a bit further saying you never should listen to anything at all on laptop speakers unless you haven't got a say in the matter.

After this album, The Dirty Feathers released a single in 2012 that is also free-priced. Then, it's the desert, at least in the studio, because the band continues to play here and there, touring the small stages and small smokey bars mostly in the US, keeping a roots attitude that so many bands tend to lose when they get bigger.

Their catalog remained almost empty for several years, but who knows ?

Well, if you start following their Bandcamp page or La Mojoteque, you'll be the first to know when they lay a new album.

In the meantime, have a good one.

Fellwoods - Wulfram

This album's cover has been my desktop wallpaper for so long... But why the hell didn't I post it here in the first place ?

It is a wrong I'll try to right, today. I love the sound of this album, like a colony of ants where the ants are small but very talented rock bands. This quatuor from Portland, Oregon gives us their own particular blend of psych-rock with a touch of metallic scent and a hint of garage.

Enjoyably nervous, entirely filled with rock'n'roll, Wulfram takes its roots in a strange mystical universe where druids can shapeshift and speak to animals during blood moons, an atmosphere that reminds me of old-school metal albums from the 60's and 70's. Just add some flaming guitar licks and the voice of the lich king's cousin and there you have it.

I'll let you try yourself.

See you around.

The Active Listener - The First Acid Folk Sampler

Here's a compilation that goes really well with the present season. The middle of autumn, leaves falling, beautiful colors, mushrooms popping up everywhere. Time to get the cows in the barn and to listen to a bit of acid-folk.

Acid-folk ? Well it's a blend of musical influences between folk and psychedelic rock. As always, the frontier between those musical styles is very blurry, and we like it that way don't we ? Everything does not hinges on the chords and rhythms used.

A great deal of what defines a music genre also rests on the attitude of the band (during live performances for example), on the lyrics, the influences, the references and the choice of the instruments used (the mellotron is typical of progressive and psychedelic rock, for instance).

What The Active Listener gives to us once more here is a compilation of a great number of quality, whimsical dreamy tracks, in a very specific style.

May they live long and prosper.

Across Tundras - Electric Relics

Across Tundras hails from Nashville, Tennessee, cradle of the boogie and country music. You can feel subtle influences of these genres on their music, which is more out of the psychedelic rock world, with sometimes a very enjoyable heaviness.

There's a bit of Black Sabbath, a bit of je ne sais quoi, but above all their own proper style, which creates images such as a long road under the burning sun, clouds of dust, tumbleweeds rolling and tumbling, a smell of rolled cigarettes and spilled whiskey glasses, minus the glass shards.

My sincere salutations,

Your much obliged host.

HIGH&DRYs - Lowest Fidelity Demos

Feels like a small psych-rock gig, in a small room with dim lights, a smell of coffee, beer and scratched guitar chords in the air... Lowest Fidelity Demos is a dozen tracks of scratchy lo-fi psych-rock, with ghostly voices losing themselves in outer space, echoing riffs, and a sound that feels like raw wood.

Lo-fi is the opposite of hi-fi and a recording technique all in one. There are people who like listening to their music with the utmost sound quality with super power lord bass booster detecter automatic channel tracking (and I do too), and then there are other, strange people who prefer when the sound coughs and scratches a little, who record their music with old tools and instruments to be able to feel what seems to be impressions from another time, lost to some, ever living to others.

Au moins ça sera plus facile à écouter en live. Allez je vous laisse, il pleut.

Prog Sphere Promotions (VA) - Progstravaganza: Selections I

Avast you lovers of progressive rock, progressive metal, progressists, lovers of music that goes wild, of King Crimson, Riverside, Porcupine Tree, Tool and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Here is something to satiate your needs well and for long.

Prog Sphere Promotion is a label from Serbia and as you may as well have understood already, they specialise in all kinds of music containing the letters "prog" in their names, a musical style that is relatively obscure and hard to grasp, going as well with rock than with metal, infusing itself with influences from jazz-fusion. It is a music that lingers (lots of tracks of more than ten minutes), that stretches itself with long master solos (guitar, drums, organ, synth, bass...) lyrics ranging from melancholy to romantism on the verge of lyric poetry.

But it is also a music that is completely crazy, absolutely not neutral, as you may already understand listening to track 2 (my favourite). I'm saying this for the people using La Mojo to put some music during parties, this won't work with this compilation, unless all your friends are unconditional lovers of progressive music.

I'll leave you to your listening now, and let us hope that 2015 will be a really good year, that will see real change in the system, but that will give birth to a LOT of good free music, always as good and powerful as it was before. Strength and honor.

Juleah - Shimmering Road

Smooth-singing austrian Juleah knock on your door of perception to take you on a journey on the straight desertic roads of the USA, on a sunny day, here is what is to come if you click on play, in this album, velvet-like and necessary to your collection.

Juleah - Entangled and Entwined

Sweet melodies from an oases-filled desert of chilling drowsiness. A voice coming from afar, guiding you, helping you find your way, not back home, but further away, where you did not know you could go before today. This is the feeling I get when listening to Entangled and Entwined, the simple and classical combination of drums, guitar and bass, and dreamy vocals. Again just press play and wait till you're convinced. I can tell you nothing more.

Dust Storm Warning - Dust Storm Warning

Ok guys I'm taking back what I said about how it's hard to find good free non-electronic music on the web. It's not so hard really, but you got to be bold and daring, sorry if anyone was discouraged by what I said earlier.

Here is a good pack of Stoner Rock with a metallic side, to eat in the desert with dirty hands and a face like a worn-out road map. This album came out on Acid Cosmonauts Records, of which we'll talk more later, yes we will, when we have spoken to themses yes we will...

LAMBS - Blister

I really feel like going in the desert right now, with that kind of music in the background of my head. Great sound between old-school psychedelic vibes and classical rock music.

Soft.

Camel Heads - Camel Heads

I woke up this morning and realised my dreams are getting weirder and weirder. Dreams, what are they ? Emanations of what transpired during the day or pure creation of unchained brains ? Let us hope nobody will ever know for sure.

Dreams of dark places, heat, of purple smoke, a setting sun in the desert while you run endlessly towards the horizon. Falling from a tiny platform in a gigantic sky filled with concerned thinking clouds.

Slow yet short, this album from the Camel Heads builds up a dreamy atmosphere and gives the listener cheap travel means : closed eyelids. Longing guitars and an omnipresent bass, as quoted on their Bandcamp page "Camel Heads sounds like a series of slow buildups for epic stoner jams".
 

MMOSS - i

Funny it is how groups bands that are new newest in the music in the net of the music are able to create make or produce old-school atmospheres and manage to sound just like classics of the golden age of psychedelic rock. I know this sentence was badly constructed, but I did not get much sleep yesterday. MMOSS do not give a lot of information about themselves, to say the least, but in their music you can feel some far faring influences such as Kaleidoscope or Strawberry Alarm Clock, and that good old flute, what would we be without her ?